adminnight, when the rabid home fans offered him a chorus of “You’re getting sacked in the morning”.
The Arsenal boss’s features flickered for a second into a cracked smile — so rare in recent times it was almost a collectors’ item.
As he witnessed the horror unfolding around him, though, if he didn’t laugh he would surely have broken down in hysterical sobs.
It comes to something when a manager with Wenger’s record of success is getting career advice from League Two supporters, but after the most dire half of football in living memory from his side, they perhaps had a point.
The Gunners were so bad, their manager’s ranting “team talk” at the interval could be heard through the wall in the Bradford dressing room.
For much of the first hour they appeared to think their opponents were Barcelona, such was the exaggerated respect and lack of ambition on display.
They actually managed a shot on target by the 70th minute. But there was no width, confidence or belief in their inherent superiority, even when the Bantams sat back as a victory came within tantalising reach.
What they lacked most of all, though, was both physical and mental strength — which condemns Wenger more than any other failing.
His “Invincibles” team played sublime football, but they could scrap too. With Vieira, Campbell and Toure, there was power and real heart. The current model is feeble in comparison.
On a freezing Yorkshire night, with Bradford’s biggest crowd in more than 50 years producing a spine-chilling atmosphere, spirit and grit were required. Sadly, Arsenal were lacking in both.
For Wenger, that harsh reality must have been painfully apparent, and with it, the germ of a thought that maybe he has lost sight of what is required to fashion a winning team.
On this evidence, he has.
If so, then it is time for him to go. — The Mirror.
Online Reporter